The title of the Exhibition "Soundlines of Contemporary Art" evokes The Songslines, the well-known Bruce Chatwin’s book about the oral aboriginal tradition during the “dreamtime” period from which derives the territory map. In the art world this means drawing a net of new myths coming from the imaginary built by artists who filter the world through their identities and social background, producing phantasmic images which live in resonance or dissonance all over the globe, in an amazing and vibrant connection and exchange. 

In this cultural humus, the contribution of Armenian artists and people from the art system, seen and unseen, has been of great relevance, as witnessed by Arshile Gorky, gallery owners like Larry Gagosian, or collectors like Calouste Gulbenkian. The show wishes to mirror this cultural fusion by way of Armenian artists in dialogue with artists from other nations, as well represented by the Armenian musical instrument “duduk” which is internationally renowned and perfectly integrated in the orchestra. The selection of works was made based on the concept of both outright and unintended echoes of and in Armenian visual arts. Terms like the reverberation of sound, intercultural interaction, identity, transferability and wanderlust matter. It is this that the show wishes to point out and map for the contemporary situation to further dialogue on an international level as is in the nature of this nation’s art.

The artists chosen make use of all expressive means: many use video, time as part of video-installation, others use sculpture, often environmentally, and even painting and photography are well represented too. This means that the show needs to be carefully displayed and that the usual technological artifices will be employed for exhibiting the videos. We speculate that each artist will exhibit two works, a large one and a smaller one (of course, depending on the available space, it could be decided to exhibit just one installation, or groups of wall works instead of two). The works will, wherever possible, be obtained from Italy or Europe (obviously, an exhibition copy of the videos can be sent), though attention will be taken not to select works already well-known from earlier exhibitions.